Chapter Text
Peril yawned, pacing around her bedroom in Jade Mountain Academy. It was rather lonely in there. No one really came in there much other than Clay, for obvious reasons. Peril and a flammable dragon in the same small room was not a good idea. Most certainly not.
Peril really wanted someone to talk to but unfortunately Clay was over in Pantala to help with all sorts of things. Apparently the other continent was just recovering from a bunch of messed up stuff. And Peril wasn't allowed to go because of how much grass and plants there were over there that needed to be taken care of really badly. Apparently Pantala had no trees because some random tribe wanted to wipe it all out. Honestly, though, Peril could do that all by herself. But she wouldn't because she was nice.
But since Clay was gone and most of the students and staff were gone because they were at Pantala too whether they wanted to help out or just have a field trip, that left Peril at the academy with Starflight and Fatespeaker. But the two of them were in the library, which was absolutely off limits to Peril so she was stuck being completely bored until Clay came back.
Luckily enough, he soon did. "Hey, Peril!" Clay said, coming into the room.
Peril immediately lit up and bounded over to him, giving him a quick hug before letting go and letting his scales stitch themselves back up. "Clay, you're back!" She said in delight. "What's Pantala like? Please tell me as much as possible just like you do the rainforest because it seems like there's a lot of places in the world that are off limits to me."
"Oh yeah, Pantala's weird," Clay said. "Like, they've got these things that look like cows but aren't cows? I think? And there are no trees and why is there so little mud I want my mud back and everyone's pretty weird looking but I'll get used to them eventually."
"Yeah, you will," Peril said encouragingly. "Say, who's the weirdest looking one?" She asked. That wasn't rude, right? The only one hearing her say that was Clay, not the dragons she was asking about. Wait, was this gossiping? Didn't Turtle say something about gossiping being rude? Oh well, too late to take back the words now.
"Uh, I think they all are," Clay said, frowning, but then he added, "Oh, wait, there was this Pyrrhian dragon that looked kind of weird. He was a SkyWing but very pale orange and he had blue eyes like you, Peril."
Peril suddenly stopped, frozen. A SkyWing with pale orange scales? Blue eyes? Just like her?
"Clay, where is he?" Peril asked suddenly.
Clay tilted his head in slight confusion. "Uh, the last time I checked he was visiting the Sky Kingdom or something?" He said, but even before he had finished speaking Peril was already shouting 'goodbye' and rushing out the door, leaving Clay to stare at her retreating figure in surprise. "Was it something I said?" He asked the empty room.
Peril sooner or later made it to the Sky Kingdom and she found herself in Queen Ruby's palace for some reason. She had no idea why that was the first place she looked, but it was the place she was most familiar with so...
"Peril!" Cliff said eagerly, noticing her and bounding over, but stopping just in time so he didn't touch her. "Hi, Cliff," Peril said, wishing that she could hug him. "Have you seen a weird looking SkyWing with blue eyes?"
Cliff dramatically looked around for a few seconds before pointing at her.
Peril laughed. "No, the one I'm looking for has pale orange scales." She said.
Cliff frowned. "Sorry, I don't know," He said. "But I could ask my mom!" He added cheerfully, bounding off, and soon he came back saying that Queen Ruby had told him that there was a newcomer in the kingdom who had come with a scavenger- no, human, because apparently they were sentient and that was what they called themselves. And the newcomer matched the description of the odd dragon that Clay had met.
After some more questions Peril quickly found out where the odd dragon and his human companion were and she quickly raced off to meet them, after, of course, promising to see Cliff again later. He really was such a sweet little dragonet.
Peril soon found them, and it was easy to pick them out. Pale orange scales stood out against the dark crimson and vermillion of normal SkyWings, and the human riding atop the odd dragon made him stick out even more. Apparently the two of them were sightseeing. Peril waited until they were both in a more open area and carefully approached them, holding her breath.
The human noticed her first. "Oh, hello." She said in perfect Dragon. "Don't eat me."
"You must be Wren, right?" Peril asked. She had heard someone talking about a human named Wren who could speak Dragon, so this had to be her.
"Yeah, and I'm Sky!" The pale orange dragon said cheerily.
Peril snorted before she could stop herself. "A SkyWing named Sky?"
"I named him." Wren shrugged, making Peril wrinkle her nose. Had Wren raised Sky? That was a weird thought. "What's your name?"
"Peril." Peril said.
Sky approached Peril. "Your scales are pretty, Peril," He said, reaching out to touch them.
Peril jerked back as quick as she could. "Don't touch me!" She said quickly, her heart beating erratically at the close call. She was so used to everyone immediately knowing to avoid her that it hadn't even occurred to Peril that Sky and Wren wouldn't know.
"I have a condition called firescales." Peril explained. "Everything I touch gets set on fire."
She flicked her tail, immediately scorching fresh green grass into a withered patch of dark plant matter.
"Whoa." Wren stared at the smoldering ashes, wide-eyed.
Sky whistled in amazement. "That's a weird coincidence." He said. "I can't breathe fire."
And that was the moment when it all became real to Peril. "It's you!" She breathed, scarcely believing it.
"Who?" Sky blinked.
"My... my twin brother." Peril whispered.
Sky and Wren looked at each other, and then at Peril. "You do look alike." Wren said skeptically, "But how do you know that you're related? I found Sky all by himself as a baby. No siblings."
"Was there a dark red dragon with a burn mark?" Peril asked quickly.
Wren paused, thinking about it. "There was." She admitted.
"That was my mother!" Peril shouted. "Can't you see? We're twins!"
Sky's eyes were widening in realization but Wren still looked skeptical. "It could be a coincidence." She said.
Peril sighed, exasperated. She could sort of understand Wren being skeptical, but seriously, Sky was her brother! "Look, there's proof." She said. "Only one firescales dragon and one fireless dragon was hatched since a few centuries ago. One is me. The other is Sky. And they are twins."
"Wren, I've got a sister!" Sky yelped in delight, bouncing around. Wren gripped onto Sky's scales in an attempt to not fall off, and it looked like she was finally believing it too. Took her long enough.
"So you're long lost siblings?" She asked.
"Yup!" Peril grinned, her heart doing a little dance in her chest. She'd always wanted a real family, but after Kestrel died, she'd kind of given up on it. But now Sky was here. And nothing was going to ever separate them again. Peril would make sure of it.